The Ghostwriter(6)

She coughs out a laugh at the thought, and opens the refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of Moscato and setting it on the corner. Vodka would be more appropriate, something to toast the end of her career with. But she threw out all of the vodka when Rod left. The vodka, the bourbon, the small bottles she’d found tucked in every corner of their apartment. Turns out her husband had been quite the alcoholic, a trait she hadn’t discovered until he’d left. Funny what you find out about people when they leave you. Or when your mind stops making excuses for all of their clues. The counselor had called those clues—his womanizing, his sloppy drinking, his lies—a call for help. “He was standing there, screaming at you with his actions,” she’d explained. “He was begging you for help.”

It was bullshit. He was begging Captain Morgan for help. Not her. That woman, with all those fancy initials after her name, with her knowing smile and condescending tone, didn’t know shit about real people, real problems, and real relationships.

She thinks of Helena, and of her stiff tone, her prickly demeanor that had poked at Kate through the phone line. Did Helena drink her problems away, or have any problems to begin with? Probably not. How many problems could someone like her have? She lounged around with all the talent and the money in the world. The damn woman is planning retirement at thirty-two, will spend the rest of her life sunning in the Caribbean, making early morning love to her husband, and growing fat with babies.

She turns off the burner, and taps the spoon against the edge of the pot. She tries to imagine Helena, screaming in the middle of the room, asking someone for help.

It will never happen. The woman would die first.





“Tell me about your books.” His arm brushes against my shoulder when we walk, and I tuck my hands into my pockets, nervous at the thought of him reaching out, the uncomfortable join of sweaty palms.

I glance over at him, the wind rustling through the soft flop of his hair, the light from the bar’s neon sign painting his face a rosy glow. “They’re romance novels. You know. Boy meets girl.”

He chuckles, and I like the curve of his lips, the way that his eyes light up when they look at me. “That simple, huh?”

I shrug, my own mouth lifting a little. “Love is pretty simple, Simon.”

A dumb statement. But back then, I only dreamed about, yearned for, and wrote about love. I didn’t realize what a brutal beast it could become.





There’s a mouse in my house. I lie on my belly and hold out the piece of cheese, pushing it further underneath the couch, holding my breath as I hear the skitter of tiny paws across the floor.

I wish Bethany was here. If only… If only Mom could strap her into the car seat and bring her here, could walk in the door without knocking, just like she used to. Bethany could worm onto her stomach next to me, her tiny elbows against the wood floor, her eyes big. She would cover her mouth and giggle. Lower her chin to the floor and peer under the heavy leather couch. I could tell her that mice tails can grow as long as their bodies and that they eat 15 to 20 times per day.

I push the cheese with the tip of my nail and pull back my hand, waiting to see if the tiny creature will appear. Maybe he has a family, a tiny nest somewhere with five or six tiny pink bodies tucked in a cluster of scrap paper and misplaced threads, their miniscule mouths gaping open and begging for food. This piece of cheese can be their dinner, can pair nicely with the chunk of bread I left yesterday.

Maybe I should have let Charlotte WhatsHerFace in. The girl who showed up yesterday, armed with her questions, intent on ruining my day. Maybe her visit was just routine, a cop following up on Simon’s death, a four-year check-in, and not an intensive investigation into the circumstances. Or maybe the Simon reference was an excuse, and she is actually my long lost sister. Our conversation might have unveiled a story of fire station abandonment, her youth spent in foster homes before she was finally adopted—probably by a wealthy sheik, one who crowned her a princess and is now marrying her off. She might need my help, wanting to run away to a happier life, one of freedom and sisterhood.

Ha. A terrible plot, full of holes, the first being that my mother would never abandon a child. She would have embraced a second child, especially one with Charlotte’s delicate features and blonde hair. I bet she was a pretty baby. I bet she didn’t refuse pacifiers or request more nutritious meals at preschool.

I turn my head, resting my ear against the wood floor, and watch the white chunk, waiting for the tremor of whiskers, a tiny nose peeking out, hesitant steps taken toward the food. I’ve never had a pet. Mother always crushed that possibility, appalled at the idea of drool, pet dander, urine and feces.

I shift on the floor, and close my eyes, a headache pinching hard, the pain almost blinding in its stab.





I push back from the laptop, my fingers trembling when I fumble with the edge of the drawer, pulling it open. I twist the cap off of the medicine bottle, shaking out two pain pills and popping them into my mouth. Another headache, my vision spotty from it. This morning there was a doctor’s appointment, one where I laid out my symptoms and the doctor assured me they will only get worse. He gave me a sales pitch on chemo, along with a fresh script for pain meds. The chemo I passed on, but the meds I accepted.

I eye the bottom of my computer screen. Seventeen hundred words. Barely a chapter, and my fingers are stalling, my sentences grinding to a halt, my mind tripping over simple words it knows by heart. I’ve written fifteen books and never had such a complete whitening of thought, like a blizzard against your windshield, no options available but to pull over and stop. I push away from the desk, settling back in the chair and swinging my feet up, resting my socked heels against the wooden surface.